{"id":10364,"date":"2015-11-27T01:42:35","date_gmt":"2015-11-27T01:42:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.pennedinthemargins.co.uk\/?p=10364"},"modified":"2017-12-02T23:26:09","modified_gmt":"2017-12-02T23:26:09","slug":"ryan-van-winkle-wins-saltire-society-poetry-book-of-the-year","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.pennedinthemargins.co.uk\/index.php\/2015\/11\/ryan-van-winkle-wins-saltire-society-poetry-book-of-the-year\/","title":{"rendered":"Ryan Van Winkle wins Saltire Society Poetry Book of the Year"},"content":{"rendered":"

We are completely thrilled to announce that Ryan Van Winkle has won the Saltire Society Poetry Book of the Year for his atmospheric collection The Good Dark.<\/a><\/h2>\n

Published in April 2015, The Good Dark<\/em> includes poems from Ryan\u2019s one-on-one poetry show Red, Like Our Room Used to Feel<\/em>, one of the best-rated shows at Edinburgh Festival Fringe 2012 and described by Lyn Gardner in The Guardian<\/em> as ‘intimate and haunting’.<\/p>\n

Having chosen Scotland as my adopted home, this is a very special honor for me. I did not expect this at all & am proud that the Saltire Society found The Good Dark worthy. I am flattered and grateful for this distinction.<\/p>\n

Ryan Van Winkle<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The Good Dark<\/a> has been praised by The Scotsman<\/em> as ‘channelling Bob Dylan at his trippy, visionary best… hits home like a punch to the sternum’ and by The Skinny<\/em> as ‘[moving] between stabbing pain, deep melancholy and cautious optimism, always with the same gentle touch’. His first full collection since 2010, The Good Dark<\/em> cements Van Winkle’s reputation as one of the most evocative poets writing today. Through a lyric voice both familiar and strangely different, he leads the reader through shifting forests of memory and towards a grim acknowledgement of the need to get up, to be careful, to move.<\/p>\n

Congratulations, Ryan!<\/p>\n

Order The Good Dark online<\/a>
\nDiscover all the winners in this year’s Saltire Society Awards<\/a><\/p>\n

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About Ryan<\/h3>\n

Ryan Van Winkle was born in New Haven, Connecticut and lives in Edinburgh. His debut collection, Tomorrow, We Will Live Here<\/em>, was published by Salt in 2010. His poems have appeared in The American Poetry Review<\/em> and Scotland on Sunday<\/em>. He has performed the poetry\/theatre show Red, Like Our Room Used to Feel<\/em> at Battersea Arts Centre, London Literature Festival and Edinburgh Festival Fringe. He was awarded a Robert Louis Stevenson Fellowship in 2012. His second collection, The Good Dark<\/em>, was published by Penned in the Margins and won the Saltire Society Poetry Book of the Year 2015.<\/p>\n

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_<\/span><\/h3>\n

After the Service<\/h2>\n

It is not compound interest; it is the belief
\nin compound interest, the reaping we share
\nor avoid as we accept and deny death.
\nWe think of atoms or protons or quarks;
\nwe count to a trillion with metaphors right round the earth.
\nBut the spring of black mucus does not make a boy believe.<\/p>\n

The rain comes to wash away snow.
\nFor years Mom kept Gran\u2019s lungs
\nin a box beneath the dogwood tree
\nonly she could see, from the kitchen,
\nwashing dishes, frying a simple egg
\nthat will lay in the belly, get buried there
\nso solid for a while, forgotten
\nby the time lunch rolls around. And
\nwhen the day comes to unbury her lungs
\n\u2013 I present the lights, Dad\u2019s face is a veil,
\nPeter\u2019s shoulders drape. She\u2019s soaking salt,
\nsky black. Snotty clouds pull apart.<\/p>\n

If she got to heaven, if she went down,
\nher lamp still on but she\u2019s not reading,
\nshe\u2019s scratching her chest, Lord knows.
\nAnd we found dust, wrote our childish names
\nwith small fingers, put out the lights,
\neyes wet with belief.<\/p>\n

_<\/span><\/p>\n

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Watch Ryan Van Winkle read in Berlin<\/h3>\n